Self-ideal Discrepancy Research Articles

Self-discrepancies and vulnerability to body dissatisfaction and disordered eating.

Two studies explored the relevance of self-discrepancies for body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. In Study 1, actual:ideal self-discrepancies of female undergraduates correlated with body shape dissatisfaction independent of Ss' body mass and number of appearance-related self-beliefs; actual:ought discrepancy was discriminantly associated with anorexic-related attitudes and behaviors. In Study 2 (using a mixed-gender sample), bulimic-related behaviors were associated with a form of actual:ideal discrepancy (unfulfilled positive potential) whereas anorexic-related symptoms were associated with actual:ought discrepancy. Both genders showed the predicted relations between self-discrepancies and disordered eating, and the predicted associations remained even when appearance-related attributes were excluded from scoring of self-discrepancies.

Body image or body images?: Comparative, multidimensional assessment among college students.

A major criticism of research on body image concerns the dubious assumptions of the unidimensionality of the construct and the equivalence of body-image measures. Our study of 125 male and female college students compared multiple measurement methods within each of two modalities of body image: (a) perceptual (body-size estimation) and (b) attitudinal (body-image affect and cognition). Clinically relevant indices of psychological adjustment and eating disturbance were included. Results clearly supported the distinction between attitudinal and perceptual modalities of body image and indicated more convergent and discriminant validity for the former than for the latter. Whereas one method of assessing size-estimation accuracy and most body-image attitudes produced relationships with maladjustment, only attitudinal body image and perceptual, self-ideal discrepancy measures were significantly linked to eating disturbance. Relationships were generally more consistent for women than for men. Implications are discussed in the context of extant and future research on body image with clinical and nonclinical populations.

Study of ideal-self discrepancy and observed social behaviors in a therapeutic community.

This descriptive study explored relations between ideal self-discrepancy (often referred to as self-esteem or self-concept) and behaviors observed in 27 residents of a therapeutic community for polydrug users. The Sliding Person Test (SPERT), an abstract, nonverbal measure of self-reported, ideal self-discrepancy was administered three times a week, for seven consecutive weeks to 27 subjects after regularly scheduled group meetings. Data were charted on graphs to reveal fluctuations of ideal self-discrepancy and incidences of observed, documented changes in behavior. Analysis suggests the instrument detects some changes in ideal self-discrepancy congruent with transitional behaviors. In more than half of the cases, fluctuation of 25% or more in discrepancy between ideal self-concept and at-the-moment self-concept was directly related to an observed change in behavior or residents' transition in the hierarchy of the program's structure. Implications for validity and reliability issues concerning measures of ideal-self-discrepancy are briefly discussed.

The Role of Evaluative Self-Schemata in Cognitive Processing and Performance: The Impact on Self-Efficacy, Self-Evaluation and Task Outcome

Abstract Recently, considerable attention has been given to the role of self-schemata in cognitive processing of predictions and evaluation of behavioural events. In the context of a behaviour-analytic conceptualisation of complex disorders we have suggested evaluative self-schemata, operationalised as self-ideal discrepancies, as a salient factor in the regulation of behaviours. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that negative evaluative self-schemata, assumed to guide and organize cognitive processing, would predict low efficacy expectations, impaired performance, negative self-evaluation, and unprocessed post-test self-efficacy in a coping/achievement task. Most of these hypotheses were empirically supported with the notable exception that the negative self-schema group showed only marginal deterioration of task performance. However, given a more adaptive performance than expected, this was strongly contrasted by lack of visible effect on post-test efficacy, as would be predicted from self-efficacy and s...

Do Self-Ideal Discrepancies and Global Self-Esteem Amount to the Same Thing?: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract Measures of self-esteem differ considerably in the assumptions they make about the nature of the construct. These differences are often overlooked in discussions of self-esteem. An examination was accordingly conducted of the relationship between measures of the distance between actual self and ideal self (derived from repertory grids) and an adapted version of Rosenberg's measure of global self-esteem. The stability over periods up to 15 months of both kinds of measure was also examined. Two samples (N = 20 and N = 28) of students and recent graduates provided data as part of a longitudinal study of career development. Results differed between samples, but in general indicated that global self-esteem overlaps with but is not the same as the discrepancy between actual self and ideal self. Scores were generally stable over time. Explanations for the results are discussed, together with their implications for how we should construe self-esteem.

Do self-ideal discrepancies and global self-esteem amount to the same thing?: an empirical investigation

Abstract Measures of self-esteem differ considerably in the assumptions they make about the nature of the construct. These differences are often overlooked in discussions of self-esteem. An examination was accordingly conducted of the relationship between measures of the distance between actual self and ideal self (derived from repertory grids) and an adapted version of Rosenberg's measure of global self-esteem. The stability over periods up to 15 months of both kinds of measure was also examined. Two samples (N = 20 and N = 28) of students and recent graduates provided data as part of a longitudinal study of career development. Results differed between samples, but in general indicated that global self-esteem overlaps with but is not the same as the discrepancy between actual self and ideal self. Scores were generally stable over time. Explanations for the results are discussed, together with their implications for how we should construe self-esteem.

Long-term effects of incestuous child abuse in college women: social adjustment, social cognition, and family characteristics.

Long-term effects of incestuous child abuse in college women: social adjustment, social cognition, and family characteristics.

Intrapersonal and interpersonal discrepancy among delinquent and nondelinquent girls: a research note.

Delinquent and nondelinquent girls were compared to examine the relationship between delinquency and masculine self-concept. Ratings of self and ideal self were obtained to compute self-ideal discrepancy indices on (a) stereotypically sex-related traits and (b) traits which each subject selected as salient to making interpersonal judgements of women. Ratings were also made of best friend and mother to examine interpersonal as well as intra-personal discrepancy indices. For stereotypic sex-role traits, discrepancy indices for the three comparisons (self-ideal, self-mother, self-best friend) revealed no differences between delinquents and nondelinquents. For personally selected traits, significant differences did appear for self-mother and self-best friend discrepancies.

Self-ideal discrepancies as indicators of self-derogation and enhancement: formalization of theoretical claims and a method for assessment.

Empirical research shows that persons scoring low on psychological adjustment (PA) generally experience large ideal self (IS) versus actual self (AS) discrepancies whereas the reverse is true for high-PA persons. A particularly interesting interpretation of this phenomenon, consistent with a large body of clinical and experimental literature, ascribes it to self-derogation processes in low-PA persons and self-enhancement processes in high-PA persons. This article points out that this derogation/enhancement (D/E) interpretation assumes that people differing in PA level relate and organize the AS and IS judgments in qualitatively different ways. This results in a nonlinear relationship between PA, AS, and IS. Following a definition of the derogation/enhancement interpretation in terms of the relationship between AS, IS, and PA, a methodology for testing this interpretation is presented, and its implications are discussed. It is also shown that the methodology developed with regard to AS, IS, and PA can be used to examine D/E hypotheses involving other variables.

A Study of Human Relations Training Groups

Five human relations training groups were studied using a theoretical model developed by Andrews (1978, p. 86) to assess group leaders' styles and to predict outcomes. Participants'gains were assessed from changes in self-esteem (self-ideal discrepancy reduction) and social sensitivity (self-other discrepancy reduction) over the course of the group. Participants also responded to a questionnaire about the most significant learning that occurred for them during the group. The results showed two distinct types of group experience: One involved leaders who used more interpersonal interventions. Members gave each other more feedback and showed more gains on the sensitivity measures and less on the self-esteem measure. They also reported more "critical incidents "having to do with increased awareness of how others viewed them and tended to be more critical of the experience. The other type involved leaders with a more interpersonal style, with members giving each other little feedback. Here, members showed more gains on the self-esteem measure and none on the social sensitivity measures.

Personality Correlates of Reflectivity

This study investigated personality correlates of reflectivity. Spitzer's Twenty Statements Test procedure, developed within a symbolic-interactionist framework, was used to identify reflective subjects. Of primary interest was the relationship between reflectivity and indices of ideal-self discrepancy. Other variables assumed to have relevance to reflectivity were self-awareness, imagery control, socialization, and anxiety. Results confirmed the predictions for ideal-self discrepancy and for anxiety. The implications of these findings for understanding the reflective process are briefly presented.

Actualization, integration, and fear of death: A test of the additive model

Abstract Considerable research over the last ten years has suggested that individuals who are less actualized or who see themselves as more discrepant with their ideals are prone to experience higher levels of death fear and anxiety than those who are relatively more actualized or have lower self-ideal discrepancy. Similarly, a large body of research employing the Threat Index has indicated that persons with more integrated conceptions of self and death show lower levels of death concern. Recently, it has been proposed that these two factors, actualization and integration, may have an additive effect on fear of death, such that highly actualized, highly integrated individuals will experience less death fear than other groups. The present study found no support for this additive model using a heterogeneous sample of adult respondents, although it did replicate earlier work demonstrating a modest linear relationship between both actualization and integration and various aspects of death orientation. Potential explanations for this finding are discussed, centering on the complementary relations that obtain between different aspects of death concern and the two predictor variables.

Client centered management development

This paper presents the findings of a study of the effects of an experimental clientcentered management development training program. It describes the training design as well as the research methodology employed to test its effects. “Client-centered” refers to educational processes which are fundamentally different from traditional IBM management training designs and strategies. The essential difference is that this is a learner-based design which focuses on the individual's needs for and methods of change. Traditional teacherbased processes attempt to produce prescribed effects upon all learners. This research project produced findings of statistically significant reported changes in the attitudes and managerial behaviors of the managers who attended the training program. These revised attitudes and changes in managerial behavior were found to be in areas that represent significant and fundamental implications for improving organizational effectiveness within IBM. These changes were measured approximately 100 days subsequent to the training experience. An attempt to measure self-ideal discrepancy value reductions as an effect of this training produced ambiguous results, due to the selection and/or use of the measuring instruments. One major sociological change, an effect of this training, continues to persist more than one year beyond the training program.

Self-concept: a function of self-perceived somatotype.

The Tennessee Self-concept Scale was employed to assess multiple dimensions of self-concept in 284 college males; the Perceived Somatotype Scale was used to assess three indices of somatotype. MANOVA revealed significant differences in global self-concept among the self-perceived somatotype (PSS), the perceived-ideal somatotype (PSI), and the self-ideal discrepancy (PSD) groups. Univariate analyses indicated that the PSS groups differed significantly in all but the Moral-Ethical dimension of self-concept, while no univariate self-concept differences were found among the PSI groups. The PSD groups differed markedly on all but the Moral-Ethical and Family Self subscales. The assertion that somatotype affords little psychological predictive utility needs amendment in light of the findings of the present study.

Self-esteem and cognitive consistency effects on self-other evaluation

Reactions to bogus evaluations of one's self, either positively or negatively discrepant from one's own self-evaluation, were investigated among subjects differing in self-ideal discrepancy. All subjects exhibited greater acceptance of the source of favorable information than the source of unfavorable information, and changed their self-evaluation more toward the favorable than unfavorable position. However, among low self-ideal discrepancy subjects, the change in self-evaluation was accompanied by a similar change in friend evaluation, thereby maintaining their standing in relation to this friend after receiving either positive or negative evaluations. In contrast, high discrepancy subjects downgraded the friend more and upgraded the friend less than themselves, thereby enhancing their relative standing as a result of the feedback. These findings indicated that defensive or self-enhancing effects on self-evaluation processes are determined by self-ideal discrepancy.

Personality and Political Participation: Does Self-Ideal Discrepancy Make a Difference?

Rival accounts of the relation between personality adjustment, e.g., psychic fulfillment, self-actualizarion, and the like, and political participation are summarized, and the notion of self-ideal congruence introduced as an independent variable of relevance. The latter, as an aspect of self-actualization, was then investigated for its relationship to political participation. Findings from a sample of 85 college students did not conform to expectations derived from “actualization” theory but were not inconsistent with “compensation” perspectives, as no positive relationship was found between congruence and two measures of political participation.

Construct Validity Analyses of a “Nonverbal” Measure of Self-Esteem: The Sliding Person Test

This study investigated construct validity for a “nonverbal” measure of self-esteem, the Sliding Person Test (SPERT). Seven personality measures and an intelligence test were administered to 202 college students. A test-retest reliability coefficient of .82 was obtained ( N = 45). Correlations between scores on SPERT and social desirability, anxiety, and IQ indicated sufficiently low overlap with these variables. Minimal evidence of convergent and discriminant validity was established. Linear and curvilinear relationships between scores for SPERT and social and emotional adjustment, respectively, were contrary to expectations but similar to those of previous studies. Expected differences between students high and low in self-acceptance with large SPERT discrepancies support other literature which suggests that large self-ideal discrepancies are associated with better adjustment and lower anxiety for highly self-accepting people.

Change and stability of self-concepts of Iranian psychiatric patients and normals.

Using a Semantic Differential type of questionnaire, the self-concept, ideal-self, and the discrepancies between them were measured for 45 male and 36 female Iranian psychiatric patients admitted to a University-affiliated hospital in the first 48 hr. of hospitalization and compared with those of a group of 24 normals. Significant differences were found in self-concept and self-concept/ideal-self discrepancy between the two groups. After a 4-wk. interval, the testing was repeated and changes as to self-concept, and self-concept—ideal-self discrepancy of patients were investigated and contrasted with the same for normals. Results indicated that, while the self-concept and discrepancy of self-concept/ideal-self of the normals remained stable, those of mental patients significantly improved but were still lower than those of normals.

A new scale for the adjective check list based on self vs. ideal-self discrepancies

Obtained self and ideal-self protocols on the Adjective Check List for 100 American Air Force officers and 95 Italian young men who were applying for a nation-wide precollege military training school. Comparison of endorsement rates for the 300 items in the ACL detected 44 that showed appreciable and similar shifts in both samples. On 31 endorsement increased and on 13 it decreased. The real-self protocols then were scored, +1 each time a positive item was checked and - 1 for each endorsement of a negative item. Self-ideal congruence was measured by the phi correlation between the two protocols from each person. Scores on the new scale correlated. 63 with phi in the American and 0.46 in the Italian samples. Ratings and adjectival descriptions by observers were available for the American sample. Their relationship to scores on the new scale suggested it to be a measure of social poise, ambition, and initiative more than of personal soundness or self-insight.

Self-ideal discrepancy and acceptance of false personality interpretations.

Effects of self-ideal discrepancy and favorability of content on subjects' acceptance of personality interpretations were studied. Subjects accepted more favorable than neutral statements and more neutral than unfavorable statements. A significant effect was found for self-ideal discrepancy and for the interaction between self-ideal discrepancy and content favorability. In contrast to moderate and low discrepancy subjects, high discrepancy subjects accepted more of the interpretations, accepted more unfavorable, and rejected more favorable interpretations. High discrepancy subjects also accepted more neutral interpretations than did low discrepancy subjects. High discrepancy subjects expected to receive more negative feedback than low discrepancy subjects, and also interpreted this feedback more negatively than did low discrepancy subjects, while scores for the moderate discrepancy subjects were consistently between these two groups.